CHAPTER IX

ST. ONOFRIO AND TASSO

One of the most romantic shrines of pilgrimage in Rome is the church
of St. Onofrio. It is situated in the Trastevere, that portion of the
city beyond the Tiber whose inhabitants boast of their pure descent
from the ancient Romans. A steep ascent on the slope of the Janiculum,
through a somewhat squalid but picturesque street, and terminating in
a series of broad steps, leads up to it from the Porta di San Spirito,
not far from the Vatican. The ground here is open and stretches away,
free from buildings, to the walls of the city. The church has a simple
old-fashioned appearance; its roof, walls, and small campanile are
painted with the rusty gold of lichens that have sprung from the
kisses of four centuries of rain and sun. It was erected in the reign
of Pope Eugenius IV. by Nicolo da Forca Palena, an ancestor of that
Conte di Palena who was a great friend of Torquato Tasso at Naples. It
was dedicated to the Egyptian hermit Honuphrius, who for sixty years
lived in a cave in the desert of Thebes, without seeing a human being
or speaking a word, consorting with birds and beasts, and living upon
roots and wild herbs. A subtle harmony is felt between the history of
the hermit and the character of this building raised in his honour. A
spot more drowsy and secluded, more steeped in the dreams of the older
ages, is not to be found in the whole city. In front of the church
there is a long, narrow portico, sup[254]ported by eight antique columns
of the simplest construction, in all likelihood borrowed from some old
pagan temple. Under this portico is a beautiful fresco of the Madonna
and Child by Domenichino. To the right are three lunettes, which
contain paintings by the same great master, representing the Baptism,
Temptation, and Flagellation of St. Jerome. On the left of the arcade
are portraits of the most prominent saints of the Hieronomyte order.
Exposed to the weather at first, these invaluable frescoes had faded
into mere spectres of pictures; but they are now protected from
further injury by glass.

Usually the church is closed, except in the early morning, and
visitors are admitted by the custode on ringing a door bell under the
portico. The interior is dark and solemn, with much less gilding and
meretricious ornament than is usual in Roman churches. It contains, in
the side chapels, many objects of interest; frescoes and altar-pieces
by Annibale Caracci, Pinturicchio, and Peruzzi; and splendid
sepulchral monuments. Of the last the most conspicuous are the marble
tomb of Alessandro Guidi, the Italian lyric poet, who died in 1712;
and the simple cenotaph in the last chapel on the left of one of the
titular cardinals of the church, who died in 1849, the celebrated
linguist Mezzofante. But the tomb upon which the visitor will gaze
with deepest interest is that of Torquato Tasso, who died in the
adjacent monastery in 1595. The chapel of St. Jerome, in which it is
situated, the first on the left as you enter, was restored by public
subscription in 1857, in a manner which does not reflect much credit
upon the artistic taste of modern Rome. Previous to this the remains
of the poet reposed for two hundred years in an obscure part of the
church close to the door, indicated by a tablet. Above this spot there
is a portrait of the time, which from an artistic point of view is
very poor, but is said to be a good likeness. Removed on the
anniversary of his death, about thirty years ago, to the chapel of St.
Jerome, the poet's remains are now covered by a huge marble monument[255]
in the cinque-cento style, adorned by a bas-relief of his funeral and
a statue of him by Fabris. Whatever may be said regarding the artistic
merits of this monument, no one who has read the poet's immortal epic,
and is conversant with the sad incidents of his life, can stand on the
spot without being deeply moved.

Connected with the church is a monastery dedicated to St. Jerome. In
one of the upper corridors is a beautiful arched fresco of the Madonna
and Child, by Leonardo da Vinci, with the donor of the picture in
profile kneeling before her. The picture is surrounded by a frame of
fruit and flowers on an enamelled ground. The soft, tender features of
the infant Jesus, and the quiet dignity and grace of the smiling
Madonna, are so characteristic of the style of Leonardo da Vinci that
the picture would be at once referred to him by one who did not know
its origin. The chamber where Tasso spent the last days of his life is
on the upper floor, and is the most conveniently situated in the whole
building. It is left very much in the same state as when he lived in
it. The walls and ceiling are bare and whitewashed, without any
decoration. Here and there are several pale marks, indicating the
places of objects that had been removed. In one part is painted on the
plaster a false door partially open, behind which is seen the figure
of Tasso about to enter; but every person of good taste must condemn
the melodramatic exhibition, and wish that he could obliterate it with
a daub of whitewash. The custode directed my attention to it with an
air of great admiration, and could not understand the scowl with which
I turned away my face. There are several most interesting relics of
Tasso preserved in this chamber—his table, with an inkstand of wood;
his great chair covered with Cordova leather, very aged and
worn-looking; the belt which he wore; a small German cabinet; a large
China bowl, evidently an heirloom; a metal crucifix of singular
workmanship, given to him by Pope Clement VIII., which soothed his
dying moments; several of his[256] letters, and an autograph copy of
verses. In one corner is the leaden coffin, much corroded, in which
his remains were originally deposited. On the table is a mask in
reddish wax moulded from the dead face of the poet, and placed upon a
plaster bust—a most fantastic combination. From this mask, which is
an undoubted original, numerous copies have been taken, which are
scattered throughout Europe. It is in consequence somewhat effaced,
but it still shows the characteristic features of the poet—the purity
of the profile, the fineness of the mouth, and the spiritual beauty
and fascinating expression of the whole face. But the incoherence of
the adaptation makes it painful to think that this is the best
representation of the poet we possess.

The extensive garden behind the convent combines a considerable
variety of natural features. The monks grow large quantities of
lettuce and fennochio; and interspersed among the beds of vegetables
are orange and other fruit trees, and little trellises of cane,
wreathed with vines. A large tank is supplied with water from a spring
whose murmur gives a feeling of animation to the spot. The garden
rises at the end into broken elevated ground showing the native rock
through its grassy sides. A row of tall old cypresses crowns the
ridge—their fluted trunks gray with lichen-stains, and their deep
green spires of foliage forming harp-strings on which the evening
winds discourse solemn music, as if the spirit of the poet haunted
them still. On one side are the picturesque ruins of a shrine
overarching a fountain, now dry and choked up with weeds, and fringed
with ferns. Cyclamens—called by the Italians viola pazze, "mad
violets"—grow on its margin in glowing masses; sweet-scented violets
in profusion perfume all the air; and a few Judas-trees, loaded with
crimson blossoms, without a single leaf to relieve the gorgeous
colour, serve as an admirable background, almost blending with the
clouds on the low horizon. On the other side the hill slopes down in a
series of terraces to the crowded streets of the Trastevere, forming
a[257] spacious out-door amphitheatre, in which the Arcadian Academy of
Rome used to hold its meetings during the summer months, and where St.
Filippo Neri was wont to give those half-dramatic musical
entertainments which, originating in the oratory of the religious
community established by him, are now known throughout the world as
oratorios. Between these two objects still stands the large torso of a
tree which bears the name of "Tasso's oak," because the poet's
favourite seat was under its shadow. It suffered much from the
violence of a thunderstorm in 1842, but numerous branches have since
sprouted from the old trunk, and it now affords a capacious shade from
the noonday heat. It is a variety of the Valonia oak, with delicate,
downy, pale-green leaves, much serrated, and contrasts beautifully
with the dark green spires of the cypresses behind. The leaves at the
time of my visit had but recently unfolded, and exhibited all the
delicacy of tint and perfection of outline so characteristic of young
foliage. The garden was in the first fresh flush of spring—that
idyllic season which, in Italy more than in any other land, realises
the glowing descriptions of the poets. Plucking a leafy twig from the
branches and a gray lichen from the trunk as mementoes of the place, I
sat down on the mossy hole, and tried to bring back in imagination the
haunted past. Nature was renewing her old life; the same flowers still
covered the earth with their divine frescoes; but where was he whose
spirit informed all the beauty and translated its mystic language into
human words? The permanency of nature and the vanity of human life
seemed here to acquire new significance.

The spot on which I sat commands one of the finest views of Rome and
the surrounding country. Down below to the left is the enormous group
of buildings connected with St Peter's and the Vatican, whose yellow
travertine glows in the afternoon sun like dead gold. Beyond rise the
steep green slopes of Monte Mario, with vineyards and olive-groves
nestling in its warm folds, crowned with[258] the Villa Mellini beside the
"Turner pine," a familiar object in many of the great artist's
pictures. Stretching away in the direction of the old diligence road
from Florence is a succession of gentle ridges and bluffs of volcanic
rock covered with brushwood, among which you can trace the bold
headland of the citadel of Fidenæ, and the green lonely site of
Antemnæ, and the plateau on which are the scanty remains of the almost
mythical Etruscan city of Veii, the Troy of Italy. The view in this
direction is bounded by the advanced guard of the Sabine range, the
blue peak of Soracte looking, as Lord Byron graphically says, like the
crest of a billow about to break. In front, at your feet, is the city,
broken up into the most picturesque masses by the irregularity of the
ground; here and there a brighter light glistening on some stately
campanile or cupola, and flashing back from the graceful columns of
Trajan and Antonine. The Tiber flows between you and that wilderness
of reddish-brown roofs cleaving the city in twain. For a brief space
you see it on both sides of the Bridge of Hadrian, overlooked by the
gloomy mass of the Castle of St. Angelo, and then it hides itself
under the shadow of the Aventine Hill, and at last emerges beyond the
walls, to pursue its desolate way to the sea through one of the
saddest tracts of country in all the world. Away to the right, where
the mass of modern buildings ceases, the great shattered circle of the
Colosseum stands up against the sky, indicating by its presence where
lie, unseen from this point of view, the ruins of the palaces of the
Cæsars and the Forum. Beyond the city stretches away the undulating
bosom of the Campagna, bathed in a misty azure light; bridged over by
the weird, endless arches of the Claudian aqueduct, throwing long
shadows before them in the westering sun. Worthy framework for such a
picture, the noble semicircle of the Sabine Hills rises on the horizon
to the left, terminating in the grand rugged peak of Monte Gennaro,
whose every cliff and scar are distinctly visible, and concealing in
its bosom the romantic[259] waterfalls of Tivoli and the lone ancestral
farm of Horace. On the right the crested Alban heights form the
boundary, crowned on the summit with the white convent of Monte
Cavo—the ancient temple of Jupiter Latialis, up to which the Roman
consuls came to triumph when the Latin States were merged in the Roman
Commonwealth—and bearing on their shoulders the sparkling, gem-like
towns of Frascati and Albano, with their thrilling memories of Cicero
and Pompey; the whole range melting away into the blue vault of heaven
in delicate gradations of pale pink and purple. In the wide gap
between these ranges of hills—beyond the stone pines and ilex groves
of Præneste—the far perspective is closed by a glorious vision of the
snow-crowned mountains of the Abruzzi, giving an air of alpine
grandeur to the view. And all this vast and varied landscape,
comprehending all glories of nature and art, all zones and climates,
from the tropical aloes and palms of the Pincian Hill to the arctic
snows of the Apennines, is seen through air that acts upon the spirits
like wine, and gives the ideal beauty of a picture to the meanest
things.

Italian poets share in the wonderful charm that belongs to everything
connected with their lovely land. They are seen, like the early Tuscan
paintings, against a golden background of romance. Petrarch, Dante,
Ariosto, invested with this magic light, are themselves more
attractive even than their poetic creations. But Torquato Tasso,
perhaps, more than them all, appeals to our deepest feelings. No
sadder or more romantic life than his can be found in the annals of
literature. He was one of those "infanti perduti" to whom life was one
long avenue of darkened days. In his temperament, in the character of
his genius, and in the story of his life, we can discern striking
features of resemblance between him and the wayward, sorrowful
Rousseau. Hercules, according to the old fable, "was afflicted with
madness as a punishment for his being so near the gods;" and the
imaginativeness of a brain[260] which had in it a fibre of insanity, near
which genius often perilously lies, may be supposed to account for
much that is strange and sad in his career. The place of his birth was
a fit cradle for a poet. On the edge of a bold cliff, overlooking the
sea at Sorrento, is the Hotel Tasso, known to every traveller in that
region. Here, according to the voice of tradition, the immortal poet
was born on the 11th of March 1544, eleven years after the death of
Ariosto. It is said that the identical chamber in which the event took
place has since disappeared, owing to the portion of rock on which it
stood having been undermined by the sea; and, as if to give
countenance to this, some of the existing apartments are perilously
propped up on the very edge of the cliff by buttresses, which, giving
way, would hurl the superstructure into the abyss. The original
building stood on the site of an ancient temple; and it is probable
that, with the exception of one of the bedrooms, which is said to have
been Tasso's cabinet, the edifice retains none of the features which
it possessed in the days of the poet.

But whatever changes may have taken place in the human habitation, the
scenes of Nature around, from which he drew the inspirations of his
youthful genius, remain unchanged. Every feature of landscape
loveliness is focussed in that matchless panorama. Behind is a range
of wild mountains, whose many-shaped peaks and crags, clad with pine
and olive, assume, as the day wears on, the golden and purple hues of
the sky—sloping down into the midst of vineyards and groves of
orange, myrtle, and all the luxuriant verdure which the warm sun of
the South calls forth, out of which gleam at frequent intervals
picturesque villages and farms, which seem more the creation of Nature
than of Art. In front is a glorious view of the Bay of Naples, with
the enchanted isles of Capri and Ischia sleeping on its bosom, and the
reflected images of domes and palaces all along its curving shores
"charming its blue waters;"[261] while dominating the whole horizon are
the snowy mountains of Campania, broken by the dark purple mass of
Vesuvius, rising up with gradual slope to its rounded cone, over which
rests continually a column of flame or smoke, "stimulating the
imagination by its mystery and terror." Apart from its associations,
that landscape would have been one to gaze on entranced, and to dream
of for years afterwards. But with its countless memories of all that
is greatest and saddest in human history clinging to almost every
object, it is indeed one of the most impressive in the world. The land
is the land of Magna Græcia. The sea is the sea of Homer and Pindar.
Near at hand are the Isles of the Sirens, who allured Ulysses with
their magic song; away in the dim distance are the wonderful Doric
temples of Pæstum, which go back to the mythical times of Jason and
the Argonauts. On the opposite shore is the tomb of Virgil, on the
threshold of the scenes which he loved to describe,—the Holy Land of
Paganism, the Phlegræan Fields, with the terrible Avernus and the Cave
of the Sibyl, and all the spots associated with the Pagan heaven and
hell; and in the near neighbourhood Baiæ, with its awful memories of
Roman luxury and cruelty, and Puteoli, with its inspiring associations
of the Apostle Paul's visit, and the introduction of Christianity into
Italy. Meet nurse for any poetic child, the place of his birth was
peculiarly so for such a child as Tasso; and we can detect in the
subjects of his Muse in after years, the very themes which such a
region would naturally have suggested and inspired.

The age in which he was born was also eminently favourable for the
development of the poetic faculty. By the wonderful discoveries of the
starry Galileo, man's intellectual vision was infinitely extended, and
the great fundamental idea of modern astronomy—infinite space peopled
with worlds like our own—was for the first time realised. It was an
era of maritime enterprise; the world was circumnavigated, and new
ideas streamed in[262] from each newly-visited region. It was
pre-eminently the period of art. Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael had
just passed away, but Michael Angelo, Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul
Veronese were still living, freeing men's spirits by the productions
of their pencil from formal fancies and conventional fetters, and
sending them back to the fresh teaching of Nature. The art of printing
was giving a new birth to letters, and the reformation of religion a
new growth to human thought. A new power had descended into the
stagnant waters of European life, and imparted to them a wonderful
energy. Along with the revival of classical learning and the general
quickening of men's minds, there was blended in the South of Europe a
lingering love of romance and chivalry, and a strong religious
feeling, which had arisen out of the vigorous reaction of Roman
Catholicism. Italy was at this time the acknowledged parent both of
the poetry and the general literature of Europe; and the immortal
works of Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto had formed an almost perfect
vernacular language in which the creations of genius could find
fittest expression.

But Tasso was not only born in a poetic region and in a poetic age: he
was also the son of a poet. He inherited the divine faculty; he was
cradled in poetry. His father, Bernardo, though he has been put into
the shade by his more gifted son, has claims of his own to be
remembered by posterity. He occupies a high place in the well-defined
group of the chivalric poets of Italy. His principal poem, the
Amadigi, which was composed about the time of his son's birth,
though not published for sixteen years afterwards, treats in a hundred
cantos the romantic history of Amadis of Gaul, and deals in giants,
enchanted swords, prodigious wounds, and miraculous cures. Various
estimates of this long poem have been formed by critics from the
favourable analysis of Ginguéné to the severe censure of Sismondi. But
in spite of its lack of dramatic power, and the monotony of its
imagery, the heat of his genius crystallising only a[263] part of the
substance of his work, there can be no question that the poem is
distinguished by a certain gravity and elevation of sentiment, which
places it high above the romances of the older school, and brings it
near to the dignity of epic poetry. In this respect the Amadigi may
be said to form an interesting transition from the irregular romance
of Ariosto to the symmetrical epic of his own son. The son's poetic
path was thus prepared, and the mould in which his immortal work was
cast was formed by his father. The fortunes of the two poets read
remarkably alike. They are marked by the same extraordinary
vicissitudes, and the same general sadness and gloom.

The family of Tasso belonged to Bergamo, in the north of Italy, a
region which has given birth to several eminent men, among others to
Tiraboschi, the historian of Italian literature. It was originally
noble, and had large territorial possessions. One ancestor, Omodeo,
who lived in the year 1290, is worthy of special mention as the
inventor of the system of postal communication, to which the world
owes so much; and hence the family arms of a courier's horn and a
badger's skin—tasso being the Italian for badger—which the
post-horses, down to within fifty years ago, wore upon their harness.
In the time of Bernardo, however, the fortunes of the family had
decayed, and the early days of the poet were passed in poverty.
Adopted after the death of his parents by his father's brother, the
Bishop of Recanati, he was placed at school, where he soon acquired a
wonderful familiarity with the Greek and Latin authors, then newly
restored to Europe. Highly cultivated, refined, and possessed of great
personal beauty, while manifesting at the same time a peculiar talent
for diplomacy, Bernardo speedily won his way to distinction. His first
work, which was a collection principally of love-poems, celebrating
his passion for the beautiful Genevra Malatesta, who belonged to the
same family as the ill-fated Parasina of Byron, attracted the
attention of the reigning Prince[264] of Salerno, Ferrante Sanseverino,
one of the chief patrons of literature in Italy, who thereupon engaged
him as his private secretary. At the court of this prince he met
Porzia de' Rossi, a lady of noble birth, who was beautiful and
accomplished, and possessed what was considered in those days a large
fortune. After his marriage with this lady Bernardo and his bride
retired to a villa which he had purchased at Sorrento, where he
enjoyed for several years an exceptional share of domestic felicity,
his wife having proved a most devoted helpmeet to him.

In these propitious circumstances the infant that was destined
afterwards to confer the greatest lustre upon the family name was
born. His father was absent at the time with the Prince of Salerno,
who had joined the Spanish army in the new war that had arisen between
Charles V. and Francis I.; a war whose chivalrous and inspiring acts
the Marquis d'Azeglio made use of in 1866 in his romance of history,
Fieramosca, to rouse again a spirit of independence in his
countrymen. A friend of his father, therefore, held the child at the
baptismal font, in the cathedral of Sorrento, where he received the
name of Torquato—a name which his elder brother, who lived only a few
days, had previously borne. The treaty of Crepi, which concluded the
war between Charles V. and Francis I., in which the former was
victorious, allowed Bernardo Tasso to return home with his patron ten
months after the birth of his son. By this treaty the French king, who
had previously assumed the title of King of Naples, resigned all
claims upon that State, and the inhabitants were henceforth subjected
entirely to the dominion of the Spanish sovereigns of the house of
Austria. The emperor, Charles V., appointed the Marquis de
Villafranca, better known as Don Pedro de Toledo, to be Viceroy of
Naples, who, like his despotic master, carried out his so-called
reforms with a high hand, and interfered with the personal and
domestic affairs of the inhabitants, so that he speedily[265] roused their
resentment. Against the establishment of the Inquisition, which he set
about under the mask of zeal for religion, but in reality for the
intimidation of the nobles, the whole city rose up in violent
opposition. After having exhausted itself in a vain struggle with the
viceroy, it resolved to petition the emperor, and commissioned the
Prince of Salerno to plead its cause at the Court of Nuremberg. But in
consequence of being forestalled by the cunning Don Pedro, the prince,
when he arrived, found the case prejudged, and all his arguments and
pleadings were of no avail. Disgusted with the failure of his errand,
with the coldness of his reception, and with other indignities which
he received at the hands of the emperor and his viceroy, he determined
to abandon altogether the cause of Austria. Repairing to Venice, he
publicly gave effect to his decision; whereupon Don Pedro, too glad to
have an opportunity of oppressing his personal enemy, declared the
prince a rebel, confiscated his estates, and seized all his personal
property. In the misfortunes of his patron Bernardo Tasso shared. He
too was proscribed as a rebel; his property at Salerno was seized, and
his wife and children were transferred by the viceroy's orders to
Naples, where her family resided, and where, under their cruel
treatment, instigated by the viceroy, she was deprived of her fortune,
and virtually held a prisoner to the day of her death.

Such were the dark clouds that, after a brief gleam of the brightest
prosperity, hung over the early years of Torquato Tasso. Deprived of
the care of a father who followed from court to court the varied
fortunes of his benefactor, and in the company of a mother worse than
widowed, dependent upon the cold and niggardly charity of friends who
were either too timid or superstitious to oppose the patron of the
Inquisition, the child grew up in melancholy solitude, like an
etiolated plant that has been deprived of the sunshine. The original
sadness and sensitiveness of his disposition was much increased by the
family misfortunes. In his seventh year[266] he was sent to a school in
the neighbourhood, opened by the Jesuits, who were at this time
beginning to exert a powerful influence upon society, principally on
account of their zeal in the cause of education. At this school he
remained for three years, acquiring a wonderful knowledge of Latin and
Greek, and manifesting such enthusiasm in his studies that he rose
long before day-break, and was so impatient to get to school that his
mother was often obliged to send him away in the dark with a lantern.
Here he showed the first symptoms of his genius for poetry and
rhetoric, and gave public testimony to the deep religious feeling
which he inherited from his parents, and which had been so carefully
cultivated by his ecclesiastical masters, by joining the communion of
the Church. In his tenth year his father left the court of Henry III.
of France, and settled in Rome, where he had apartments assigned him
in the immense palace of Cardinal Hippolito of the house of Ferrara.
These apartments were furnished as handsomely as his impoverished
resources allowed, in the hope that he might have his wife and
children to live with him. But in spite of all his efforts and
entreaties his wife was not allowed by her brothers to rejoin him;
while his own position as an outlaw made it impossible for him to
enter the kingdom of Naples to rescue her. The only concession he
could get from the authorities was permission for her to enter with
her daughter Cornelia as pensioners among the nuns in the convent of
San Festo; and no sooner was this step taken than her friends openly
seized her dowry, on the plea that it would otherwise belong to the
convent, as her husband's outlawry cancelled his claims to it. Her
boy, of course, could not enter the convent with her; he was therefore
sent to his father in Rome. The separation between mother and son, we
are told, was most affecting. To her it was the climax of her trials;
and, bowed down beneath the weight of her accumulated sufferings, she
fell an easy victim to an attack of fever, which, in the short space
of twenty-four[267] hours, ended her wretched life. Upon Tasso the parting
from a mother whom he was never to see again, and whose personal
qualities and grievous trials had greatly endeared her to him,
produced an impression which even the great troubles of his after life
could never efface.

With a mind richly stored, notwithstanding his youthful age, with
classic lore, and quickened and made sensitive by a varied and
sorrowful career, Torquato Tasso came to Rome. The first occasion of
seeing the imperial city must have been exciting and awakening in a
high degree to such a boy. He was leaving behind the passive
simplicity of the child, and had already a keen interest in the things
ennobled by history and cared for by grown-up men. This dawn of a
higher consciousness found a congenial sphere in the city of the soul.
With what absorbing eagerness his young mind would be drawn to the
study of the immortal deeds, which were the inheritance of his race,
on the very spot where they were done. He would behold with his eyes
the glorious things of which he had heard. There would be much that
would shock and disappoint him when he came to be familiar with it.
Many of the ancient monuments had been destroyed; and many of the
ancient sites, especially the Forum and the Palatine, were deserted
wastes which had not yet yielded up their buried treasures of art to
the pick and spade of the antiquarian. The ravages inflicted by the
ferocious hordes of the Constable Bourbon in 1527 had not yet been
obliterated by the restorations and repairs undertaken by Pope Paul
III. The city had lost much of its ancient glory, and had not yet
exchanged its gloomy medieval aspect for that of modern civilisation.
But, in spite of every drawback, he could not sufficiently admire the
buildings and the sites which bore witness of all that was grandest in
human history. Along with a young relative, Christopher Tasso, he
pursued his classical studies in the midst of all these stimulating
associations under the tutorship of Maurizio Cattaneo,[268] the most
learned master in Italy. The companionship of a youth of his own age
did him a great deal of good. It satisfied his affections, it saved
him from the loneliness to which his father's ill-health at the time
would otherwise have consigned him, and it spurred him on to a
healthful exercise of his mental powers. For a short time he led a
comparatively happy life in Rome. His father's prospects had somewhat
improved. Cardinal Caraffa, who was a personal friend of his, ascended
the pontifical throne under the name of Paul IV.; and as they were on
the same political side, he hoped that his fortunes would now be
retrieved. But this gleam of prosperity speedily vanished. The
imperial enmity, which had been the cause of all his previous
misfortunes, continued to pursue him like a relentless fate. Philip
II. of Spain and the Pope having quarrelled, the formidable Duke of
Alba, the new Viceroy of Naples, invaded the Papal States, took Ostia
and Tivoli, and threatened Rome itself. With extreme difficulty
Bernardo Tasso managed to make his escape to Ravenna, with nothing
left him but the manuscript of his Amadigi. In the meantime his son
was taken to his relatives at Bergamo. In this city, under the shadow
of the Alps, Torquato remained for a year in the home of his Roman
schoolfellow. The inhabitants have ever since cherished with pride the
connection of the Tassos with their town, and have erected a splendid
monument to Torquato in the market-place. The exquisite scenery in the
neighbourhood had a wonderful effect upon the mind of the youthful
poet. It put the finishing touch to his varied education. The snows of
the North and the fires of the South, the wild grandeur of the
mountains and the soft beauty of the sea, the solitudes of Nature
where only the effects of storm and sunshine are chronicled, and the
crowded scenes of the most inspiring events in human history, had
their share in moulding his temperament and colouring his poetry.

From Bergamo Torquato was summoned to Pesaro,[269] since known as the
birthplace of Rossini, hence called the "Swan of Pesaro." His father
had found a home with the Duke of Urbino, who treated him with the
utmost kindness. In the Villa Barachetto, on the shores of the
Adriatic, surrounded by the most beautiful scenery and by the finest
treasures of art, which have long since been transferred to Paris and
Rome, Bernardo Tasso at last completed his Amadigi; while,
captivated by his grace and intelligence, the duke made Torquato the
companion of his son, Francesco Maria, in all his studies and
amusements. For two years father and son enjoyed in this place a
grateful repose from the buffetings of fortune. But, fired by
ambition, Bernardo left Pesaro for Venice, in order to see his poem
through the press of Aldus Manutius; and being not only welcomed with
open arms by his literary friends in that city, but also appointed
secretary of the great Venetian Academy "Della Fama," with a handsome
salary, he sent for his son, took a house in a good situation, and
resolved to settle down in the place. There was much to captivate the
imagination of the youthful Torquato in this wonderful city of the
sea, then in the zenith of its fame, surpassing all the capitals of
transalpine Europe in the extent of its commerce, in refinement of
manners, and in the cultivation of learning and the arts. Its romantic
situation, its weird history, its splendid palaces, its silent
water-ways, its stirring commerce, its inspiring arts, must have
kindled all the enthusiasm of his nature. But he did not yield himself
up to the siren attractions of the place, and muse in idleness upon
its varied charms. On the contrary, the time that he spent in Venice
was the busiest of his life. He was absorbed in the study of Dante and
Petrarch; and the results of his devotion may still be seen in the
numerous annotations in his handwriting in the copies of these poets
which belonged to him, now preserved in the Vatican Library in Rome
and the Laurentian Library in Florence. He was also employed by his
father in transcribing for[270] the press considerable portions of his
poetical works; and these studies and exercises were of much use to
him in enabling him to form a graphic and elegant literary style. His
own compositions, both in prose and verse, were by this time pretty
numerous, though nothing of his had found its way into print as yet.

His father saw with much concern the development of his son's genius.
Anxious to save him from the trials which he himself had experienced
in his literary career, he sent him to the University of Padua to
study law, which he thought would be a surer provision for his future
life than a devotion to the Muses. One great branch of law, that which
relates to ecclesiastical jurisprudence, has always been much esteemed
in Italy, and the study of it, in many instances, has paved the way to
high honours. Almost all the eminent poets of Italy, Petrarch,
Ariosto, Marino, Metastasio, spent their earlier years in this
pursuit; but, like Ovid and our own Milton, their nature rebelled
against the bondage. They took greater pleasure in the study of the
laws for rhyme than in the study of the Pandects of Justinian or the
Decretals of Isidore. It was so with Tasso. He attended faithfully the
lectures of Guido Panciroli, although these were not compulsory, and
waited patiently at the University during the three years of residence
which is required for a law degree. But all the time his mind was
occupied with other thoughts than those connected with his law
studies. Still, uncongenial as they must have been to him, he could
not have attended for three years to such studies without
unconsciously deriving much benefit from them. They must have
impressed upon him those ideas of order and logical arrangement which
he afterwards carried out in his writings, and which separate them so
markedly from the confused, inconsistent license of the older
literature of Italy; and he could not have resided in the birthplace
of Livy, in constant association with the highest minds of the time,
as a member of a University then the most famous in[271] Europe, numbering
no less than ten thousand students from all parts of the world,
without his intellectual life being greatly quickened.

During ten months of enthusiastic work he produced his first great
poem, which, considering his age—for he was then only in his
eighteenth year—and the short time occupied in its composition, is
one of the most remarkable efforts of genius. He called his poem
Rinaldo, after the name of the knight whose romantic adventures it
celebrates—not the Rinaldo of the Gerusalemme Liberata, but the
Paladin of whom so much is said in the poems of Boiardo and
Ariosto,—and dedicated it to Cardinal Lewis of Este, then one of the
most distinguished patrons of literature in Italy. It contains a
beautiful allusion to his father's genius as the source of his own
inspiration. It abounds in the supernatural incidents and personified
abstractions characteristic of the romantic school of poetry; and
though Galileo said of it that it reminded him of a picture formed of
inlaid work, rather than of a painting in oil, it has nevertheless a
unity of plot, a sustained interest, and a uniform elevation of style,
which distinguishes it from all the poetry of the period. Our own
Spenser has imbibed the spirit of some of its most beautiful passages;
and several striking coincidences between his Faerie Queen and the
Rinaldo can be traced, particularly in the account of the lion tamed
by Clarillo, and the well-known incident of Una and the lion in
Spenser. The poem of Rinaldo will always be read with interest, as
it strikes the keynote of Tasso's great epic, the Gerusalemme
Liberata, many of the finest fictions of which were adopted with very
little modification from the earlier work. His letter asking his
father's permission to publish it came at a very inopportune moment.
Bernardo was smarting just then under the disappointments connected
with the reception of his own poem, the Amadigi. It produced little
impression upon the general public; the copies which he distributed[272]
among the Italian nobles procured him nothing but conventional thanks
and polite praise; while the magnificent edition which he prepared
specially for presentation to Philip II. of Spain, in the hope that he
might thereby be induced to interest himself in the restoration of his
wife's property at Naples, was not even acknowledged. Wounded thus in
his deepest sensibilities, and bewailing the misfortunes of his
literary career, we need not wonder that he should have sent a reply
peremptorily commanding his son to give up poetry and stick to the
law. The young poet in his distress sought the intervention of some of
his father's literary friends, and through their mediation the destiny
of Torquato Tasso and of Italian poetry was accomplished, and the poem
of Rinaldo was given to the world through the renowned press of the
Franceschi of Venice. No sooner was it published than it achieved an
extraordinary success, for Cervantes had not yet made this class of
fiction for ever ridiculous.

Notwithstanding that the public were surfeited with romantic poetry,
the merits of this new work, constructed upon different principles and
carried out in an original style, were such that the literary schools
were carried by storm, and the young Tasso, or Tassino, as he was now
called to distinguish him from his father, at once leapt into fame. So
great was his reputation, that the newly-restored University of
Bologna invited him to reside there, so that it might share in the
distinction conferred by his name. In this magnificent seat of
learning he remained, enjoying the advantage of literary intercourse
with the great scholars who then occupied the chairs of the
University, until the publication of some anonymous pasquinades,
reflecting severely upon the leading inhabitants, of which he was
falsely supposed to be the author. In his absence the Government
officials visited his rooms and seized his papers. The sensitive poet
regarded this suspicion as a stain upon his honour, and the outrage he
never forgave. Shaking the dust from his shoes, he[273] departed from
Bologna, and for some time led an unsettled life, enjoying the
generous hospitality of the nobles whose names he had celebrated in
his Rinaldo. Returning at length to Padua, where he engaged in the
study of Aristotle and Plato, and delivered three discourses on Heroic
Poetry in the Academia degli Eterei, or the Ethereals—in which he
developed the whole theory of his poetical design—which were
afterwards published, the office of Laureate at the court of Ferrara
was offered to him by Cardinal Lewis of Este, to whom, as I have said,
he had dedicated his Rinaldo.

Torquato Tasso was now in the full bloom of opening manhood. He was
distinguished, like his father, for his personal beauty and grace,
with a high, noble forehead, deep gray melancholy eyes, regular
well-cut features, and hair of a light brown. He had the advantage of
all the culture of his time. His manners were refined by familiar
intercourse with the highest nobles of the land, and his mind richly
furnished, not only with the stores of classic literature, but also
with the literary treasures of his own country; while a residence,
more or less prolonged, in the most famous towns, and among the most
romantic scenes of Italy, had widened his mental horizon and expanded
his sympathies. He had already mounted almost to the highest step of
the literary ladder. Nothing could exceed the tokens of respect with
which he was everywhere received. But, in spite of all these
advantages, Tasso was now beginning to realise the shadows that
accompany even the most splendid literary career. His own experience
was now confirming to him the truth of what his father had often
sought to impress upon his mind,—that the favour of princes was
capricious, and that a life of dependence at a court was of all others
the most unsatisfactory. Constitutionally disposed to melancholy,
irritable and sensitive to the last degree, he brooded over the
fancied wrongs and slights which he had received; and at first he was
disposed to accept the advice of his father's[274] friend, the well-known
Sperone, who strongly dissuaded him from going to the court of
Ferrara, painting the nature of the life he would lead there in the
most forbidding colours. It would have been well had he listened to
this wise counsel, strengthened as it was by his own better judgment;
for in that case he might have been spared the mortifications which
made the whole of his after life one continued martyrdom. But
recovering from a protracted illness, into which the agitation of his
spirits threw him, when on a visit to his father at the court of the
Duke of Mantua, he passed from the depths of despondency to the
opposite extreme of eagerness, and, fired by ambition, he resolved to
enter upon the path to distinction which now opened before him. And
here we come to the crisis of his life.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a state of things existed in
Italy somewhat similar to that which existed in the Highlands of
Scotland in earlier times. Each Highland chief maintained an
independent court, and among his personal retainers a bard who should
celebrate his deeds was considered indispensable. So was it with the
princes of Italy. In their train was always found a man of letters
whose poetic Muse was dedicated to laureate duties, and was valued in
proportion as it recorded the triumphs of the protecting court. For
this patronage of art and letters no court was more distinguished than
that of Ferrara.

"Whoe'er in Italy is known to fame,This lordly home as frequent guest can claim."

The family of Este was the most ancient and illustrious in Italy. The
house of Brunswick, from which our own royal family is descended, was
a shoot from this parent stock. It intermarried with the principal
reigning families of Europe. Leibnitz, Muratori, and our own great
historian, Gibbon, have traced the lineage and chronicled the family
incidents of this ducal house. Lucrezia Borgia and the Parasina of
Byron were members of it. For several generations the men and women
were[275] remarkable for the curious contrasts of a violent character and
the pursuits of the arts of peace which they displayed. Poisonings,
assassinations, adulteries, imprisonments for life, conspiracies, were
by no means uncommon incidents in their tragical history. And yet
under their government Ferrara became the first really modern city in
Europe, with well-built streets, a large population, and flourishing
trade, attracting wealthy settlers from all parts of Italy. Nearly all
the members of the reigning house were distinguished for their
personal attractions and their mental capacities. They were also
notorious for their love of display. We have books, such as the
Antiquities of the House of Este by Muratori, the Chivalries of
Ferrara, the Borseid, and the Hecatommiti of Giraldi, which were
written almost to order for the purpose of gratifying this vanity.
Borso, the first duke, caused his portrait to be painted in a series
of historical representations in one of his principal palaces;
Hercules I. kept the anniversary of his accession to the throne by a
splendid procession, which was compared to the festival of Corpus
Christi; an Order, which had nothing in common with medieval chivalry,
called the Order of the Golden Spur, was instituted by his court, and
conferred upon those who reflected lustre by their deeds or their
literary gifts upon the house of Este; while, to crown all, we read at
this day on the tower of the cathedral of Ferrara the dedicatory
inscription beginning with "To the god Hercules II.," which the
complaisant inhabitants had put there,—an apotheosis which reminds us
of the worst slavery of imperial Rome under Caligula and Domitian.
Some of the greatest names of Italy, such as Petrarch, Boiardo,
Ariosto, the wonderful prodigy Olympia Morata, and the celebrated
poetess Vittoria Colonna—the friend of Michael Angelo—were connected
with this brilliant court. The well-known French poet Clement Marot
fled to it to escape persecution in his native country. Calvin found a
refuge there for some months under the assumed name of[276] Charles
d'Heppeville, during which he converted the duchess to the reformed
faith. The father of Tasso visited it when it was at the height of its
splendour and renown. Hercules II., the then reigning prince, son of
Lucrezia Borgia, had earned a great reputation for his literary works
and patronage of the fine arts; and his wife, the friend of Calvin,
the youngest daughter of Louis XII. of France, was even more
remarkable for her talents, being equally skilled in the Latin and
Greek languages. This renowned couple drew around them a circle of the
most accomplished men and women in Europe, in whose congenial society
Bernardo Tasso spent a few months of great enjoyment, delighting all
by his wit and social qualities.

But notwithstanding all this magnificence and love of learning, the
house of Este, among its other contradictory qualities, was
distinguished for capriciousness and meanness. Even Muratori, their
ardent panegyrist, does not attempt to conceal this blemish. We must
deduct a good deal from the high-sounding praise which the courtly
writers of Italy bestowed upon this house for its splendid patronage
of literature, when we remember that Ariosto, who passed his life in
its service, was treated with niggardliness and contempt. He had a
place assigned him among the musicians and jugglers, and was regarded
as one of the common domestics of the establishment. Guarini, the
well-known author of the Pastor Fido, contemporary with Tasso, met
with much indignity in the service of Alphonso II.; while Panigarola
and several other distinguished men were compelled to leave the
service of the ducal family by persecution. Benvenuto Cellini, who
resided at the court of Ferrara twenty-five years before Tasso, gives
a very unfavourable account of the avarice and rapacity which
characterised it; and Serassi, the biographer of Tasso, remarks that
the court seems to have been extremely dangerous, especially to
literary men. It was not therefore, we may suppose, without other
reasons than his being merely a Guelph,[277] that Dante in his Inferno
placed one of the scions of the house in hell, and uniformly regarded
the family with dislike. Tasso himself was destined to experience both
the favour and the hostility, the generosity and the neglect, of this
capricious house.

Ferrara is now a dull sleepy city of less than thirty thousand
inhabitants. It is a place that continues to exist not because of its
vitality, but by the mere force of habit. Its broad deserted streets
and decaying palaces lie silent and sad in the drowsy noon sunshine,
like the aisles of a September forest. But in the days of Tasso it was
one of the gayest cities of Italy, which looked upon itself as the
centre of the world, and all beyond as mere margin. It was always
festa, always carnival, in Ferrara; and when the poet came to it in
his twentieth year, on the last day of October 1565, he found it one
brilliant theatre. The reigning duke, Alphonso II., had just been
married to the daughter of Ferdinand I., Emperor of Austria; and this
splendid alliance was celebrated by tournaments, balls, feasts, and
other pageantry, which transcended everything of the kind that had
previously been seen in Italy, with the exception, perhaps, of the
fêtes connected with the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to his
grandfather. The ardent mind of the poet, it need hardly be said, was
completely fascinated. He saw himself surrounded daily with all the
splendours of chivalry, and lived in the midst of scenes such as haunt
the dreams of poets and inspire the pages of romance. Goethe, in his
Torquato Tasso, an exquisite poem, it may be said, but wanting in
dramatic action, gives a vivid picture of the poet's life at the court
of Ferrara, which bore some resemblance to his own at the court of
Weimar.

Two sisters of the reigning prince lived in the palace, and by their
beauty and accomplishments imparted to the court an air of great
refinement. The younger, the famous Leonora of Este, was about thirty
years of age at this time, and therefore considerably older than
Tasso. A severe and protracted illness had shut her out from the[278]
festivities connected with her brother's marriage, and communicated to
her mind a touch of sadness, and to her features a spiritual delicacy
which greatly increased her attractiveness. The numerous writers by
whom she is mentioned talk with rapture, not only of her beauty and
genius, but also of her saintly goodness, which was so great that a
single prayer of hers on one occasion was said to have rescued Ferrara
from the wrath of Heaven evinced in the inundation of the Po. In the
society of these ladies Tasso spent a great deal of his time; and
perhaps his intercourse with them, unconstrained by court
conventionalities, was not altogether free from those tender feelings
which the charms of a lovely and accomplished woman, whatever her
rank, might readily excite in a poetic temperament. The author of the
Sorrows of Werther did not, therefore, perhaps draw exclusively upon
his imagination in picturing the rise and struggle of an unhappy
passion for Leonora d'Este in the bosom of the young poet. Whatever
may be said regarding this passion, however, there can be no doubt
that his heart was at this time enslaved by younger and humbler
beauties. He had much of the temperament of his father, who, although
exemplary in his single and married life, was distinguished for his
Platonic gallantry, and cherished a poetic attachment, according to
the fashion of the day, for various ladies throughout his career, such
as Genevra Malatesta, the beautiful Tullia of Arragon, and Marguerite
de Valois, sister of Henry III. These follies were but the froth of
his genius, however; and in this respect his son followed his example.
Lucrezia Bendidio, a young lady at court gifted with singular beauty
and musical talent, reigned for a while supreme over his affections.
But she had other suitors, including the author of the Pastor Fido,
and the poet Pigna, who was the secretary and favourite of the
reigning duke. The Princess Leonora tried to cure Tasso of this
passion by persuading him to illustrate the verses of his rival Pigna.
Nothing came of this first love, therefore,[279] and the object of it soon
after married into the house of Machiavelli.

In the congenial atmosphere of the court of Ferrara, surrounded by the
flower of beauty and chivalry, stimulated by the associations of his
master Ariosto, which every object around recalled, and encouraged by
the praises of the sweetest lips in the palace, Tasso set himself
diligently to the composition of the great work of his life, the
Gerusalemme Liberata, the plan of which he had formed before he left
the University of Padua. Among the treasures of the Vatican Library I
have seen a sketch in the poet's own handwriting of the first three
cantos. This sketch he now modified and enlarged, and in the space of
a few months completed five entire cantos. He read the poem as it
proceeded to the fair sisters of his patron, and received the benefit
of their criticisms. This work, which is "the great epic poem in the
strict sense of modern times," occupied altogether eighteen years of
the author's life. It was begun in extreme youth, and finished in
middle age, and is a most remarkable example of a young man's devotion
to one absorbing object. The opening chapters were written amid the
bright dreams of youth, and in the happiest circumstances; the closing
ones were composed amid the dark clouds of a morbid melancholy, and
during an imprisonment tyrannical in all its features. Placed side by
side with Homer and Virgil, it may be said with Voltaire that Tasso
was more fortunate than either of these immortals in the choice of his
subject. It was based, not upon tradition, but upon true history. It
appealed not merely to the passions of love and ambition, but to the
deepest feelings of the soul, to faith in the unseen and eternal. To
humanity at large the wars of the Cross must be more interesting than
the wrath of Achilles, and the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre than the
siege of Troy. No theme could be more susceptible of poetic treatment
than the Crusades. They were full of stirring incident, of continually
changing[280] objects and images. The strife took place amid scenes from
which the most familiar stories of our childhood have come, and around
which have gathered the most sacred associations of the heart. And
Tasso's mind was one that was peculiarly adapted to reflect all the
special characteristics of the theme. It was deeply religious in its
tone, and therefore could enter into the struggle with all the
sympathy of real conviction. His luxuriant imagination was chastened
by his classical culture; while the pervading melancholy of his
temperament gave to the scenes which he described an effect such as a
thin veil of mist that comes and goes gives to a mountain landscape.
The gorgeous Oriental world of the palm tree and the camel, seen
through this sad poetic haze, has all the shadows of the deep northern
forests and the tender gloom of the western hills. The rigid outlines
of history fade in it to the indefiniteness of fable, and fact becomes
as flexible as fancy.

The circumstances of the times were also peculiarly favourable for the
composition of such a poem. He was at the proper focal distance to
appreciate the full interest of the Crusades, not too near to be
absorbed in observation and engrossed in the immediate results; not
too far off to lose the sympathy for the religious chivalry which
inspired the Holy War. Earlier, in the intensely prosaic period that
immediately succeeded, the romance of the Crusades was gone; later,
Europe was girding itself for the sterner task of reformation. Before
the time of Tasso, Peter the Hermit would have been deemed a foolish
enthusiast; later, he would have been sent to a lunatic asylum. But
just at the time when Tasso wrote there was much, especially in Italy,
of that spirit which roused and quickened Europe in the eleventh
century, much that appealed to the natural poetry in the human heart.
The recent victory of the Christian forces at the famous battle of
Lepanto checked the spread of Mohammedanism in Eastern Europe, and
turned men's thoughts back into the old channel of the Crusades; so[281]
that Gregory XIII., who ascended the pontifical throne about the time
that Tasso had resumed the writing of his Gerusalemme, had actually
planned an expedition to the Holy Land, like that which his
predecessor, Urban II., had sent out. And one of the principal events
which the poet witnessed after his arrival at Ferrara, when the
marriage rejoicings were over, was the departure of the reigning duke
with a company of three hundred gentlemen of his court, arrayed in all
the pomp and splendour of the famous Paladins of the first Crusade, to
assist the Emperor of Austria in repelling an invasion of the Turks
into Hungary. Many of the noble houses of Europe at this time were
extremely anxious to trace their origin to the Crusades; and the
vanity of the house of Este required that Tasso should make the great
hero of his epic—the brave and chivalrous Rinaldo—an ancestor of
their family. The scenes and associations, too, in the midst of which
his daily life was spent, helped him to realise vividly the pageantry
connected with the heroes of his epic.

Thus happy in the choice of a subject, and favoured by the spirit of
the time and the circumstances in which he was placed, Tasso gave
himself up to the composition of his poem with a most absorbing
devotion. Like Virgil, he first sketched out his work in prose, and on
this groundwork elaborated the charms of colouring and harmony which
distinguish the poem. So carefully did he study the military art of
his day that all his battles and contests are scientifically
described, and are in entire accordance with the most rigorous rules
of war; and so thoroughly did he make himself acquainted with the
topography of the Holy Land by the aid of books, that Chateaubriand,
who read the Gerusalemme under the walls of Jerusalem, was struck
with the fidelity of the local descriptions. Tasso occasionally sought
relief from his great task by the composition of sonnets and lyrics,
which were published in the Rime of the Paduan Academy, and
contributed to make him still more popu[282]lar all over Italy. He also
took part in those literary disputations in public which were
characteristic of the age; and for three days in the Academy of
Ferrara, in the presence of the court, defended against both sexes
fifty "Amorous Conclusions" which he had drawn up—a form of
controversy which seems to have been a relic of the courts or
parliaments of love, very popular in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. One of the ladies of the court impugned with success his
twenty-first conclusion "that man loves more intensely and with more
stability than woman;" but whether this success was the result of the
goodness of her cause, and not rather of her own ability or of Tasso's
gallantry, may be left an open question. He afterwards published the
whole series of the "Amorous Conclusions," and dedicated them to
Genevra Malatesta, who now, as an old married woman, was greatly
touched by receiving such a compliment from the son of her former
lover.

Tasso's father was now dying at Ostiglia, a small place on the Po, of
which the Duke of Mantua had made him governor. With talents
unimpaired, at the age of seventy-six, and while preparing a new poem
upon the episode of Floridante in the Amadigi, he was seized with
his last illness. His son, full of filial anxiety, hastened to see
him, and found the house in wretched disorder; the servants having
taken advantage of the helplessness of their master to neglect their
duties and steal any valuable property they could lay their hands
upon, so that Tasso had not only to take charge of the household
affairs, but also to defray out of his own scanty resources the
domestic expenditure. After a month's severe struggle his father died
in his arms, to the regret of all Italy, and his remains were interred
with great pomp by the Duke of Mantua in a marble cenotaph in the
principal church of his capital, and were afterwards transferred by
Tasso to the church of St. Paul in Ferrara, where they now lie. Thus
passed away one of the most conspicuous and unfortunate persons of his
age, of whom it[283] has been said that he was "a politician, unlucky in
the choice of his party; a client, unlucky in the choice of his
patrons; and a poet, unlucky in the choice of his theme."

The fatigue and sorrow connected with this bereavement brought on a
severe illness, from which Torquato recovered with a sense of
loneliness and depression which only deepened as the years went on.
From this melancholy he enjoyed, however, a temporary respite by a
visit to Paris. The house of Este by frequent intermarriages was
connected with the French court, in consequence of which they had a
right to use the golden lilies of France in their armorial bearings;
and many of the ecclesiastics of the family held rich benefices in
that country as well as in their own. Cardinal Lewis, the brother of
the reigning duke, resolved to inspect the abbeys that belonged to him
in France, and to strengthen the Roman Catholic cause, which had
received a severe blow from the Reformation; and among the gentlemen
of his train he took with him Tasso, in order to introduce him to his
cousin Charles IX., who himself dabbled in poetry and had a fine
literary taste. From the French monarch the poet obtained a gracious
reception; and by the whole court he was warmly welcomed as one who
had worthily commemorated the gallant deeds of the Paladins of France
at the siege of Jerusalem. For nearly a year he resided in different
parts of France, and notwithstanding the numerous distractions of such
a novel mode of life, he added many admirable stanzas to his great
epic, inspired by the very scenes among which his hero, Godfrey, and
his knights had lived. He left just in time to escape the dreadful
massacre of St. Bartholomew; but he may be said to have suffered
indirectly on account of it. Though treated with distinction by the
French court, his personal wants were left unsupplied, and his patron,
Cardinal Lewis, did not make up for this meanness. Voltaire,
therefore, had reason to indulge in a cynical sneer at the glowing
accounts of his visit given by Italian writers; and Balzac's statement
that Tasso left France[284] in the same suit of clothes that he brought
with him, after having worn it for a year, is not without foundation.
This shabby treatment, however, was part of a wider State policy. The
year of Tasso's residence in France was one of preparation for the
massacre of St. Bartholomew; but in order to avert the suspicions of
the intended victims, the Huguenots were treated with such
extraordinary favour by the authorities that the Pope himself was
incensed, and remonstrated with the King. Tasso, ignorant of the
dreadful secret, spoke candidly and vehemently against the reformed
doctrines and those who professed them. His patron therefore simulated
deep indignation on account of this imprudence; and as the step fell
in both with his personal avarice and his State policy, he broke off
the cordial relations that formerly existed between them.

On the return of Tasso to Ferrara he occupied himself for about two
months with the composition of a pastoral drama called the Aminta.
This species of poem, which originated with Theocritus, who
represented the shepherds of Sicily nearly as they were, and was
imitated by Virgil, who idealised the shepherd life, was revived at
the court of Ferrara; and some years before a local poet wrote a
pastoral describing a romantic Arcadia, which was acted at the palace,
and seems to have inspired Tasso with the idea of writing one too. But
all previous pastorals—the Sacrifizio of Beccari, the Aretusa of
Lollio, the Sfortunato of Argenti—were rough and incongruous
medleys compared with the finished production of Tasso, which may be
said to mark an era in the history of dramatic poetry. Although Tasso
himself did not think much of it, and did not take any steps to
publish it, the judgment of his contemporaries and of posterity has
placed it next in point of merit to the Gerusalemme; and by Italians
it is especially admired for its graceful elegance of diction. Leigh
Hunt executed a very good translation of it, which he dedicated to
Keats. Its choruses, which are so many "lyrical[285] voices floating in
the air," are very beautiful. It was designed for the theatre, and was
acted with great splendour at the court of Ferrara, and a few years
later at Mantua, when the well-known artist and architect Buontalenti
painted the scenery. This fact, however, shows how primitive was the
state of the theatre at this time; and how the spectators, little
accustomed to histrionic representations, were content to witness
dramas that had no plot or action, and to follow the progress of a
beautiful poem rather than a dramatic development. The Aminta long
retained its popularity as an acted poem in Italy. It was often
represented in open-air theatres, like the ancient Greek plays, in
gardens or in woods, where Nature supplied the scenery, and the
scalinata or stage was only some rising piece of ground. Traces of
one of these sylvan theatres may still be seen in the grounds of the
Villa Madama, on the eastern slopes of Monte Mario near Rome; and one
cannot help thinking that a poem so redolent of the open air, so full
of Nature and still natural life, which Tasso himself called Favola
Boschereccia, or a Sylvan Fable, was better adapted for such a stage
than for the heated air and artificial surroundings of the Italian
theatres. Such a pastoral was in entire keeping with the manners of
the Italian peasants; and the scenes of Arcadia which it represented
might be seen almost everywhere in the beautiful valleys and
chestnut-covered hills of their native land. The exquisite loveliness
of the climate, and the simplicity and indolence of the people, lent
themselves naturally to such ideal dreams. And Tasso in his Aminta
only gave expression to the same happy thoughts which the same scenery
and the same people had ages before inspired in the mind of Virgil
when he wrote his Eclogues.

After a few months' quiet sojourn with Lucrezia d'Este, now Duchess of
Urbino, at that court, he was appointed secretary to the Duke of
Ferrara, in room of his rival Pigna, who for this reason became his
mortal[286] enemy, and stirred up against him the persecution which
embittered his whole subsequent life. But standing high, as he did, in
the favour of the duke, he enjoyed for a while a season of calm
repose, during which he finished the great epic poem, which was
eagerly looked for throughout Italy. Anxious to make this cherished
work of his genius as perfect as possible, he unfortunately was
imprudent enough to submit portions of his work to all his learned
friends for their opinion. Besides in this way getting the most
contradictory advices, sacrificing his own independent judgment, and
imposing an unworthy yoke upon his genius, the result was that the
fragments of the poem passed from hand to hand, and so got into the
possession of the printers, who, eager to profit by the public
curiosity, pieced them together, and clandestinely printed them. Even
in this fragmentary form, the cantos that appeared in various cities
of Italy were received with unbounded applause. The author, as may be
imagined, was intensely annoyed at this wrong that had been done to
him, and wrote to the Pope, to the Republic of Genoa, and to all the
Italian princes who had any authority in the case, to put a stop to
the publication of a work which had been circulated without his
sanction, but in vain. Even the first complete edition, which was
issued in 1581, seems to have been without his consent; for the author
complains that he was compelled, by the surreptitious publication of
parts of his poem, to finish the work in haste, and he wished for more
time to elaborate the plot and polish the style. In the later
editions, no less than seven of which appeared the same year, Tasso
seems to have been to some extent consulted; but it may be said that
the great epic was given to the world in the form in which we now have
it, without the author's imprimatur, and without the benefit of his
finishing touches. But in spite of this disadvantage it took the whole
country at once by storm. Two thousand copies were sold in two days.
Throughout literary circles nothing else was spoken of. The exquisite[287]
stanzas, full of the true chivalric spirit, touched a responsive chord
in every Italian bosom. Not only in the academies of the learned was
the poem discussed, not only was it recited before princes amid the
splendours of courts, but priests mused over it in the solitude of the
cloister, and peasants chanted its sonorous strains as they worked in
the fields. Quotations from it, we are told, might be heard from the
gondolier on the Grand Canal of Venice, as he greeted his neighbour in
passing by, and from the brigand on the far heights of the Abruzzi, as
he lay in wait for the unsuspecting traveller; and "a portion of the
Crusader's Litany was a favourite chant of the galley-slaves of
Leghorn, as, chained together, they dragged their weary steps along
the shore."

There is no book which it is easier to find fault with than the
Gerusalemme when estimated by the satiated critical spirit of modern
times, which insists upon brevity, and demands in each line a certain
poetic excellence; especially if the poem is known only through the
medium of a translation, which, however faithful, is but the turning
of the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. We may object to the want of
originality in the leading characters, to the occasional inflated
style, and the conceits and plays upon words now and then introduced,
to the apparently disproportionate influence of love upon the action
of the poem, as Hallam has remarked, giving it an effeminate tone,
and, above all, to the introduction of so much supernatural machinery
in the form of magic and demons; for such supernaturalism is out of
keeping altogether with our vaster knowledge of the universe, and our
more solemn ideas of Him who pervades it. But it is not by an analysis
of particular parts, or a criticism of special peculiarities, that the
Gerusalemme should be judged. It is by its effect as a whole, as a
highly finished work of art. A single campaign of the first
crusade—that of 1099—embraces the whole action of the poem; but the
numerous episodes form each a perfect picture,[288] that, like a flower
floating on a stream, and illumined by a special gleam of sunlight,
does not interrupt the continuous flow of the narrative. In a state of
society characterised by much corruption, the sentiments are uniformly
pure; and in an artificial age, when Nature was regarded as only the
background of human action, the descriptions of the objects of Nature
are wonderfully accurate; and the mind of the poet towards the flowers
and trees, the woods and hills and streams, was in a childlike state,
and had all the freshness and joyousness of childhood. The student is
not to be envied who can read without emotion the enthusiastic
description of the Crusader's first sight of Jerusalem, the touching
pathos of Clorinda's death, and the sublime account of the ruins of
Carthage. It would indeed refresh many a mind, surfeited by the vast
mass of our modern literature, to go back to the green pastures and
still waters of this grand old poem.

Every visitor to Florence knows the venerable monastery of San Marco,
with its hallowed relics of Savonarola, and its beautiful frescoes of
Fra Angelico. In a large apartment of this monastery, which was
formerly the library of the monks, are now held the meetings of the
famous Della Cruscan Academy, instituted in 1582 for the purpose of
purifying the national language. At that time every town of the least
importance in Italy had its academy with some strange fantastic name,
which was an important element in the intellectual life of the people,
and exercised a critical control over the literature of the day. Up to
the year 1814 the Della Cruscans assembled in the Palazzo Riccardi,
the ancient palace of the Medici; but that stately building being
required for Government purposes, the members have since been
accommodated in San Marco, where they have sunk into obscurity, many
of the inhabitants of Florence being altogether ignorant of the
existence of such an institution in their city. I had considerable
difficulty in finding out the locality. The furniture of[289] the
apartment is exceedingly curious, and is meant to indicate the object
of the Academy, which—as its name literally translated, of the bran
or chaff, signifies—is to sift the fine flour of the language from
the corrupt bran that has gathered around it. The chairs are made in
imitation of a baker's basket, turned bottom upwards and painted red.
On the wall behind each chair is suspended a shovel, with the name of
its owner painted upon it, along with a group of flowers in allusion
to the famous motto of the Academy, "Il più bel fior ne coglie," "It
plucks the fairest flower." On the table, during my visit, there was a
model of a flour-dressing machine and some meal sacks; while several
printed sheets of a new edition of the Italian Dictionary, which the
members were engaged in publishing at the time, with manuscript
corrections, were scattered about. At present the Academy, besides
doing this important work, occasionally holds public sessions; but it
is an effete institution, that has little more than an archæological
interest. It was very different, however, in the sixteenth century.
Then, in point of numbers and reputation, it was the outstanding
literary academy of Italy, and occupied the commanding position from
which the all-powerful humanists of the previous age had been driven
by the counter reformation. It is chiefly, however, by its attacks
upon Tasso that it is now known to fame.

No sooner was the Gerusalemme published than comparisons began to be
instituted between it and the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto. This
latter poem was then in the zenith of its reputation; it was regarded
as the supreme standard of literary excellence, and it was slavishly
imitated by all the inferior poets of Italy. It was inevitable,
therefore, that the two works should be compared together. But as well
might the Æneid of Virgil be compared with the Metamorphoses of
Ovid. The Orlando Furioso is a romantic poem in the manner of Ovid,
whereas the Gerusalemme Liberata is an epic[290] poem in the manner of
Homer and Virgil. No Italian poet previous to Tasso had written an
epic; and Tasso himself distinctly avowed that he had chosen that form
of poetry deliberately; not only as being more congenial to his own
mind, but also that he might avoid following in the steps of Ariosto,
whose work he regarded as, in its own department, incapable of being
excelled, or even equalled. In reply to the generous letter of
Ariosto's nephew, who wrote him a letter of congratulation, he said,
"The crown you would honour me with already adorns the head of the
poet to whom you are related, from whence it would be as easy to
snatch it as to wrest the club from the hand of Hercules. I would no
more receive it from your hand than I would snatch it myself."

But in spite of the altogether different nature of the two poems, and
in spite of the distinct disavowals of Tasso, the critics persisted in
accusing him of the presumption of entering the lists with Ariosto.
And in this idea they were strengthened by the injudicious praises of
Camillo Pellegrini, who in a dialogue entitled Caraffa or Epic
Poetry, likened the Orlando Furioso to a palace, the plan of which
is defective, but which contains superb rooms splendidly adorned, and
is therefore very captivating to the simple and ignorant; while the
Gerusalemme Liberata resembles a smaller palace, whose architecture
is perfect, and whose rooms are suitable and elegant without being
gaudy, delighting the true masters of art. This squib was published in
Florence, and at once aroused the hostility of the Della Cruscans.
They were already prejudiced against Tasso on account of his
connection with the court of Ferrara, between which and the court of
Florence there was a bitter rivalry; and that offence was intensified
by the unguarded way in which he spoke of the Florentines as being
under the yoke of the Medici, whom he denounced as tyrants. The
Academy, which at the time enjoyed the patronage of the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, was therefore too glad[291] to seize upon Pellegrini's squib as a
pretext for a vehement attack upon Tasso's epic. Ariosto was dead, had
passed among the immortals, and was therefore beyond all envy; but
here was a living poet, who belonged to a court which had cruelly
treated the daughter of their ruler, Lucrezia de Medici, the first
wife of Alfonso of Ferrara, and was a mere youth, who was guilty of
the sacrilege of seeking to dethrone their favourite. Ariosto had
greatly admired Florence, and celebrated its beauties in one of his
finest poems; and was it to be borne that this young upstart, who had
presumed to speak disparagingly of their city, should be preferred to
him? It would be a useless waste of time to go over in detail the
absurd criticisms by which they attempted to throw ridicule upon the
Gerusalemme Liberata. They would have passed into utter oblivion had
not Tasso himself, by condescending to reply to them, given to them an
immortality of shame. Not contented with abusing his poem and himself,
they also attacked his father, asserting that his Amadigi was a most
miserable work, and was pillaged wholesale from the writings of
others, and thus wounded the poet in the most tender part.

By this combination of critical cavils against him, Tasso was thrown
back from the land of poetical vision into a dreary mental wilderness.
The effect upon one of his most sensitive nature, predisposed by
temperament and the vicissitudes of his life to profound melancholy,
was most disastrous. We can trace to this cause the commencement of
those mental disorders which, if they never reached actual insanity,
bordered upon it, and darkened the rest of his life. His overwrought
mind gave way to all kinds of morbid fancies. His body became
enfeebled by the agitation of his mind; and the powerful medicines
which he was prevailed upon to take to cure his troubles only
increased them. Like Rousseau during his sad visit to England, he
became suspicious of every one, and lost faith even in himself.[292]
Religious doubts commenced to agitate his mind. Distracted by this
worst of all evils, he put himself into the hands of the Holy
Fraternity at Bologna; and though the inquisitors had sense enough to
see that what he considered atheistical doubts were only the illusions
of hypochondria, and tried to reassure him as to their belief in the
soundness of his faith, he was not satisfied with the absolution which
they had given to him.

The court of Ferrara was full of unscrupulous intriguers. Tasso's
wonderful success could not be forgiven by some of the petty aspirants
after literary fame who haunted the ducal precincts. Pigna, whose
place as secretary he had usurped, stirred up the jealousy of the
other courtiers into open persecution. Leonardo Salvinati, the leader
of the Della Cruscan Academy, wishing to ingratiate himself with the
court, joined in the hostility. Tasso's papers were stolen, and his
letters intercepted and read, and a false construction was put upon
everything he did. At first the duke refused to hear the various
accusations that were brought against him, and continued to show him
every mark of esteem. He had the privilege, in that ceremonious age a
very high one, of dining daily with the prince at his own private
table. He accompanied the princesses to their country retreats at
Urbino, Belriguarda, or Consandoli, where in healthy country pursuits
he forgot for a time his troubles. At Urbino he wrote the unfinished
canzone to the river Metauro, one of the most touching of his
compositions, in which he laments the wounds which fortune had
inflicted upon him through the whole of his hapless life.

But the tenure of princely favour at Italian courts, amid so many
ambitious patrons and anxious suitors, was very precarious. It was
uncommonly so at Ferrara. After a while a sudden change passed over
the mind of the duke towards Tasso. Whether tired of the poet's
incessant complaints, irritated at his incautious conduct—going the
length on two occasions of drawing his[293] sword, when provoked, upon
members of the ducal household,—or whether his suspicions were
aroused regarding the relations between him and his sister Leonora, is
not known, but from this time he began to treat Tasso as if he were a
madman. He was placed under the charge of the ducal physicians and
servants, who reported to their employer every careless word. Removed
from Belriguarda, he was ordered to be confined in the Ferrarese
convent of San Francisco; and two friars were appointed to watch over
him continually. Such a life was unendurable to the proud poet, who
disliked the nauseous medicines of the convent as much as its
restraint; and taking advantage of a festa, when his keepers were
unusually negligent, he made his escape by a window. In the disguise
of a shepherd he travelled on foot over the mountains of the Abruzzi,
getting a morsel of bread and a lodging from the peasants by the way,
to his sister's house at Sorrento, now the Vigna Sersale. There he
remained during the whole summer, soothed by his sister's affectionate
kindness. The monotony of the life, however, began to pall upon him,
and he longed to get back to his old scenes of excitement. Undeterred
by an evasive reply which the duke sent to an urgent letter of his, he
set out for Ferrara; and on his arrival, meeting with a cold
reception, he was obliged again to leave the place where he had once
been so happy. For a year and a half he wandered over almost the whole
of Northern Italy, visiting in turn Venice, Urbino, Mantua, Padua,
Rome, and Turin. At the last place he arrived without a passport, and
in such a miserable condition that the guards at the gates of the city
would not have admitted him had he not been recognised by a Venetian
printer who happened to be present. His startled looks, his nervous
manner, and his perpetual restlessness, confirmed wherever he went the
rumour of his madness; and, even if he were not mad, the object of
Alfonso of Este's anger might be a dangerous associate. During all
this time he was in the greatest poverty, being obliged to sell for[294]
bread the splendid ruby and collar of gold which the Duchess of Urbino
had presented to him when he recited to her at her own court his
pastoral poem of Aminta.

From the Duke of Urbino and Prince Charles Emanuel of Savoy, however,
he received generous treatment; but a fatal spell carried him back a
third time to Ferrara. His arrival by an unfortunate coincidence
happened to be on the very day that Margaret Gonzaga, daughter of the
Duke of Mantua, was to come home as the third bride of Alfonso. The
duke, preoccupied with the stately ceremonies connected with his
nuptials, took no notice of him; and many of the courtiers from whom
he expected an affectionate welcome, taking their cue from their
master, turned their backs upon him. What a contrast to his first
reception at that court fourteen years before, when he stood among the
noble spectators of Alfonso's marriage with his first wife, the
Archduchess of Austria, as one of the most honoured of the guests! He
now gazed upon the splendours of this third marriage ceremony, by far
the greatest poet of his age, but a homeless vagrant, a reputed
maniac, treated with neglect or contumely on every side! No wonder
that his cup of misery, which had previously been filled to the brim,
overflowed with this last and crowning insult; and, scarce knowing
what he did, he broke forth into the most vehement denunciations of
the duke and his whole court, declaring that they were all "a gang of
poltroons, ingrates, and scoundrels." These fiery reproaches, which
his misery had wrung from the poor poet, were carried by his enemies
to the ear of the Duke, and Tasso was immediately seized and
imprisoned as a lunatic in the hospital of Santa Anna in Ferrara—in
the same year and the same month, it may be mentioned, in which
another of the great epic poets of the world, Camoens, the author of
the Lusiad, finished as a pauper in an hospital his miserable
career.

While madness was alleged as the ostensible reason, the real motives
of this step are involved in as deep a[295] mystery as the cause of Ovid's
banishment to Tomi, on the Euxine. Muratori, the author of the
Antiquities of the House of Este, says that he was confined
principally in order that he might be cured; while the Abbate Serassi,
who wrote a life of the poet, attributes his imprisonment to his
insolence to the duke and his court, and to his desire, repeatedly
expressed and acted upon, to leave his patron's service. But both
these writers considered the interests of the house of Este more
sacred than those of truth. The cause generally accepted is Tasso's
supposed attachment to Leonora, the sister of the duke. For a long
time he is said to have cherished this passion in secret, concealing
it even from the object of it, although evidences of it may be found
in some marked form or playful allusion in nearly all his poetical
writings; the episode of Olinda and Sophronia in the Gerusalemme,
which he was urged in vain by his friends to withdraw on the ground of
its irrelevancy, being intended to represent his own ill-fated love.
On one occasion, however, in a confiding mood, he told the secret to
one of the courtiers of Ferrara, whom he believed to be his devoted
friend. But what was thus whispered in the closet was proclaimed upon
the house-top; and a duel was the result, in which Tasso, as expert in
the use of the sword as of the pen, put to flight the cowardly traitor
and his two brothers, whom he had brought with him to attack the poet.
This adventure, and the cause of it, reached the ears of the duke,
whose resentment was kindled by the audacity of a poor poet and
dependant of his court in falling in love with a lady of royal birth.
On the strength of this suspicion his papers were seized, and all the
sonnets, madrigals, and canzones that were supposed to give
countenance to it, confiscated. The manuscript of the Gerusalemme
itself was retained, and a deaf ear was turned to the poet's
entreaties for its restoration. Gibbon, in his Antiquities of the
House of Brunswick, relates that one day at court, when the duke and
his[296] sister Leonora were present, Tasso was so struck with the beauty
of the princess, that, in a transport of passion, he approached and
kissed her before all the assembly; whereupon the duke, gravely
turning to his courtiers, expressed his regret that so great a man
should have been thus suddenly bereft of reason, and made the
circumstance the pretext for shutting him up in the madhouse of St.
Anne. An abortive attempt was made to prove the attachment, about
fifty years ago, by a certain Count Alberti, who published a
manuscript correspondence purporting to be between Tasso and Leonora,
which he discovered in the library of the Falconieri Palace at Rome.
The alleged discovery excited an immense amount of interest in this
country and on the Continent; but ere the edition was completed the
author was accused of having forged the manuscripts in question, and
was condemned to the galleys.

The story of this hapless love is so romantic in itself, and has been
made the theme of so much pathetic poetry, that it would be almost a
pity to destroy by proof any foundation upon which it may rest. And
yet it is difficult to agree with Professor Rosini, who has ably
treated the whole question in a work entitled Amore de Tasso, and
has come to the conclusion, after carefully weighing all the evidence,
that this was the rock upon which Tasso's life made shipwreck. On this
theory several circumstances are altogether inexplicable. We may
dismiss at once the famous kiss as certainly a myth. Besides the
disparity of age, the ill-health, severe piety, and exalted rank of
Leonora were formidable barriers in the way of Tasso's contracting a
passion for her; and it is well known that the poet, who could not
have forgotten so soon a devoted love, did not offer a single tribute
of regret to her memory when she died a few years afterwards. It is
also but too certain that Leonora left her supposed lover to languish
in a dungeon without any reply to his pathetic complaints. The force
of gravitation[297] is a mutual thing; and just as the great sun himself
cannot but bend a little in turn to the smallest orb that wheels
around him, so the august Princess of Este could not but have regarded
with womanly interest a devoted admirer, however humble. The poetical
gallantry of the day will account for all Tasso's lyrical effusions in
praise of Leonora. They were in most instances simply the tributes
that were expected from the laureate of a court, especially a laureate
who was accused, with some show of reason, by the courtiers of
Ferrara, of an enthusiastic devotion to women, and of wasting his life
with the day-dreams of love and chivalry.

Regarding the question of his madness, which was, as I have said, the
ostensible cause of his imprisonment, we are left in almost equal
uncertainty. His morbid sensibility, irritated by the treatment which
he received alike from his friends and foes, his repeated complaints
and occasional violences and extravagances of conduct, may have seemed
to a selfish prince to border closely upon mental derangement. But his
whole conduct during his imprisonment, the nature of the numerous
writings which he produced during that dark period, forbid us to
suppose that his intellect ever crossed the line which separates
reason from insanity. From out the gloom that surrounds the whole case
two points stand out clear and indisputable, that no indiscretion of
conduct or aberration of mind on the part of Tasso can possibly have
merited the sufferings to which he was subjected, and that whatever
may have been Alfonso's suspicions, his fiendish vengeance is one of
history's darkest crimes, and covers the tyrant with everlasting
disgrace.

Three objects attract the steps of the modern pilgrim in desolate
grass-grown Ferrara; the house, distinguished by a tablet, in which
Ariosto was born; the ancient castle in the centre of the town, in
whose courtyard Ugo and Parasina, whom Byron has immortalised, were
beheaded; and next door to the chief hotel—the Europa—and beside the
post-office, the huge hospital of St. Anne, in which[298] Tasso was
confined. This last object is by far the most interesting. The sight
of it is not needed to sadden one more than the deserted streets
themselves do. The dungeon, indicated by a long inscription over the
door, is below the ground-floor of the hospital; it is twelve feet
long, nine feet wide, and seven feet high, and the light penetrates
through its grated windows from a small yard. By several authors,
including Goethe, considerable doubts have been expressed regarding
the authenticity of this cell; and certainly the present features of
the place are not confirmatory of the tradition. This doubt, however,
has not prevented relic-hunters—among whom Shelley may be
included—from carrying off in small fragments the whole of the
bedstead that once stood there, as well as cutting off large pieces
from the door which still survives. Lamartine wrote in pencil some
poetical lines upon the wall; and Byron, with his intense realism,
caused himself to be locked for an hour in it, that he might be able
to form some idea of the sufferings which he recorded in his Lament
of Tasso.

Less than sixty years ago the insane were treated with the utmost
inhumanity as accursed of God; and the asylums in which they were shut
up were dismal prisons, where the unfortunate inmates were left in a
state of the utmost filth, or were chained and lashed at the caprice
of savage keepers. The madhouse which Hogarth drew will aid us in
forming a conception of an Italian asylum in the sixteenth century,
which was much worse than anything known in our country. The other
inmates of the hospital of St. Anne suffered much doubtless; but they
were really mad, and were therefore unconscious of their misery. But
that alleviation was wanting in the case of Tasso. He was sane and
conscious, and his sanity intensified the horror of his situation,
"enabling him to gauge with fearful accuracy the depths of the abyss
into which he had fallen." One glimpse of him is given to us by
Montaigne, who visited the cell, where it seems the unfortunate inmate
was made a show of to[299] all whom curiosity or pity attracted to the
hospital. "I had even more indignation than compassion when I saw him
at Ferrara in so piteous a state—a living shadow of himself." His
jailer was Agostino Mosti, who, although he was himself a man of
letters, and therefore should have sympathised with Tasso, on the
contrary carried out to the utmost the cruel commands of his prince,
and by his harsh language and unceasing vigilance immensely aggravated
the sufferings of his victim. This inhuman persecution was caused by
Mosti's jealously of Tasso as the rival of his beloved master Ariosto,
to whom at his own cost he had erected a monument in the church of the
Benedictines at Ferrara.

For a whole year Tasso endured all the horrors of the sordid cell in
which he was immured. After a while he was removed to a larger
apartment, in which he could walk about; and permission was granted to
him sometimes to leave the hospital for part of a day. But whatever
alleviations he might thus have occasionally enjoyed, he was for seven
long years a prisoner in the asylum, tantalised by continual
expectations held out to him of approaching release. One person
only—the nephew of his churlish jailer—acted the part of the Good
Samaritan towards him, cheered his solitude, wrote for him, and
transmitted the letters of complaint or entreaty which he addressed to
his friends, and which would otherwise have been suppressed or
forwarded to his relentless enemy. His sufferings increased as the
slow weary months passed on, so that we need not wonder that the last
years of his captivity should sometimes have been overclouded by
visions of a tormenting demon, of flames and frightful noises, with an
apparition of the Virgin and Child sent to comfort him. That he should
have been able to preserve the general balance of his mind at all in
circumstances sufficient to unseat the reason of most men, is a
convincing proof of the stability of his intellect, and his unshaken
trust in the God of the sorrowful. While we think of this protracted
cruelty of the author of his[300] imprisonment, it is some consolation to
know that he met with what we may well call a merited retribution.
Alfonso, as Sir John Hobhouse tells us, in spite of his haughty
splendour, led an unhappy life, and was deserted in the hour of death
by his courtiers, who suffered his body to be interred without even
the ceremonies that were paid to the meanest of his subjects. His last
wishes were neglected; his will was cancelled. He was succeeded by the
descendant of a natural son of Alfonso I., the husband of Lucrezia
Borgia; and he, falling under the displeasure of the Vatican, was
excommunicated; and Ferrara, having been claimed by Pope Clement VIII.
as a vacant fief, passed away for ever from the house of Este.

"The linkThou formest in his fortunes bids us thinkOf thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn,Alfonso! How thy ducal pageants shrinkFrom thee! if in another station born,Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn."

At no period of his life was the mind of Tasso more active than during
his imprisonment. In the absence of all nourishment from the bright
world of Nature which he loved so passionately, his fancy could grow
and keep itself leafy, like the cress-seed, which germinates and
produces its anti-scorbutic foliage on a bit of flannel moistened with
water, without any contact with soil or sunlight, in the long Arctic
night of the ice-bound ship. With the ravings of madmen ringing in his
ears, he composed some of the most beautiful of his writings, both in
prose and verse. Among the manuscripts of the British Museum are
preserved some of these writings, whose withered vellum pages we turn
over with profound pity, as we think of the sad circumstances in which
they were composed. The most valuable of these is the manuscript of
the Torrismondo, in Tasso's own handwriting, and in the original
parchment binding. This work was begun before his imprisonment, and it
was not finished until the year after his liberation; but[301] the greater
part of it was composed in the wretchedness of his cell at Ferrara.
The story upon which it is founded is a very harrowing one, a king of
the Ostrogoths marrying his own sister, mistaking her for a foreign
princess; but it is treated with very inadequate tragic power, and,
like the Aminta, displays no real action. Its beauty chiefly
consists in its choral odes on the vanity of all earthly things, which
are exquisitely sad and touching. We hear in them the wild wail of the
poet over his own misfortunes, and the vanishing of the dreams of
glory which haloed his life. The chorus with which the tragedy winds
up—"Ahi! lagrime; Ahi! dolore"—the words appropriately carved upon
his tombstone at St. Onofrio—is unspeakably pathetic. It is his own
dirge, the cry of a heart whose strings are about to break. It is as
untranslatable as the sigh of the wind in a pine forest. If the words
are changed, the spell is lost, and the way to the heart is missed.

At last the solicitations of the most powerful princes of Italy on
Tasso's behalf overcame the tenacity of Alfonso's will, and the victim
was released; but not till he had become so weak and ill that, if the
imprisonment had continued a little longer, death would inevitably
have opened the door for him. When the order for his liberation had
been obtained, his friends made known to him by slow degrees the glad
tidings, lest a too sudden shock should prove fatal. He was now free
to go wherever he pleased, and to behold the beauties of Nature, which
had been the mirage of his prison dreams; but the elasticity of his
spirits was gone for ever; the bow had been too long bent to recover
its original spring, and the memory of his sufferings haunted him
continually, and cast a dark shadow over everything. He could not
altogether shake off the fear that he was still in Alfonso's power,
and wherever he went he fancied that an officer was in pursuit of him
to drag him back to the foul prison in St. Anne's. A modern Italian
poet, Aleardo Aleardi, has graphically described the feelings[302] of the
gentle poet-knight, roaming, pale and dishevelled, as a mendicant from
door to door. But the sufferings that had thus maimed him bodily and
mentally had spiritually ennobled him; and there is not a more
touching incident in all history than his entreaty to be allowed to
kiss the hand of the cruel tyrant, as a last favour before leaving
Ferrara for ever, in token of his gratitude for the benefits conferred
upon him in happier days,—a favour which Alfonso, to his eternal
disgrace, refused to grant.

At first Tasso took up his abode at the court of the Duke of Mantua,
whose son, Vincenzo Gonzaga, had been the principal instrument in his
release, on the occasion of his marriage with the sister of Alfonso of
Ferrara. This Vincenzo Gonzaga is shown by the light of history in two
opposite characters: as the generous friend and patron of Tasso, and
as the pupil of the Admirable Crichton, who in a midnight brawl slew
his tutor in circumstances of the utmost baseness and treachery. For a
while Tasso was treated with great kindness at Mantua, but, the father
dying, the son no sooner ascended the ducal throne than, with the
capriciousness peculiar to Italian princes, he turned his back upon
the poet whom he had formerly befriended. The incident I have
mentioned would have prepared us for this dastardly conduct; the evil
side of his nature, which was kept in abeyance during his political
pupilage, assuming the predominance on his accession to power. Tasso's
proud spirit could not endure the neglect of his once ardent friend,
and he set out again into the cold inhospitable world, imploring in
his great poverty from a former patron the loan of ten scudi, to pay
the expenses of his journey to Rome. On the way he turned aside to
make a pilgrimage to Loretto, in order to satisfy that earnest
religious feeling which had been the inspiration of his genius, but
the bane of his life. The searching scrutinies and the solemn
acquittals of the inquisitors of Bologna, Ferrara, and the great
tribunal of Rome itself,[303] had not satisfied his morbid mind. And he
thought that he might get that peace of conscience which nothing else
could give by a visit to the Casa Santa—the house of the Virgin Mary
at Loretto. Worn out by the long journey, which he made in the old
fashion on foot, he knelt in prayer before the magnificent shrine; and
thus, admitted as it were within the domestic enclosure of the holy
household, he felt that the Blessed Virgin had given him that calmness
and repose of heart which he had not known since he had prayed as a
boy beside his mother's knee. Strengthened by the successful
accomplishment of his vow, he went on to Rome; but the stern Sixtus
V., who was now upon the Papal throne, was too much occupied with the
architectural reconstruction of Rome, and with the suppression of
brigandage in the Papal States, to bestow any attention upon
literature; and Tasso had lost whatever energy he once possessed to
assert his claims to recognition among the multitude of sycophants at
the Vatican.

Sick at heart, he left the imperial city, and directed his steps to
Naples, in the hope that on the spot he might succeed in recovering
his father's possession and his mother's dowry. But here, too, the
same ill-fortune that had hitherto dogged his steps attended him. The
lawsuit which he instituted, though it promised well at first, proved
a will-o'-the-wisp, which lured him into the bog of absolute penury.
His sister was dead; his mother's relatives, formerly hostile, were
now, because of the lawsuit, doubly embittered against him. In his
distress he sought refuge in the Benedictine monastery of Monte
Oliveto, which is now occupied by the offices of the Municipality of
Naples, and the monastery garden converted into a market-place. Here,
in one of the finest situations in Naples, commanding one of the
loveliest views in the world, and in the congenial society of the
monks, his shattered health was recruited, and his mind tranquillised
by the beauties of Nature and the exercises of religion. He repaid the
kindness of his[304] hosts by writing a poem on the origin of their Order,
and by addressing to them one of his best sonnets. Among the visitors
who sought him out in this retreat was John Battista Manso, Marquis of
Villa, who afterwards became his biographer. This accomplished
nobleman, "whose name the friendship and Latin hexameters of Milton
have rendered at once familiar and musical to English ears," was by
far the kindest and most consistent patron that Tasso ever met with.
He loaded him with presents, and showed him the most delicate and
thoughtful attentions during Tasso's visit at his beautiful villa on
the seashore near Naples. He took him with him to his tower of
Bisaccio, where he remained all October and November, spending his
days, with great advantage to his health, in hunting, and his nights
in music and dancing, taking special delight in the marvellous
performances of the improvisatori. Milton's acquaintance with Manso
may be regarded as one of the most fortunate incidents of his foreign
travels, inasmuch as his conversations about Tasso are supposed to
have suggested to him the design of writing an epic work like the
Gerusalemme; and indeed Milton is supposed to have borrowed some of
his ideas for Paradise Lost from the Sette Giornate, or Seven Days
of Creation, a fragmentary poem in blank verse, which Tasso began
under the roof of his friend at Naples. This work is now very little
known, but it is worthy of being read, if only for the lofty dignity
of its style, and the beauty of some of its descriptive parts,
particularly the creation of light on the first day, and of the
firmament on the second, and the episode of the Phoenix on the fifth.
Its association with Milton's far grander work, as literary twins laid
for a while in the same cradle, will always invest it with deep
interest to the student.

Tasso occupied himself at the same time with an altered version of his
great poem, which he called the Gerusalemme Conquistata. He was
induced to undertake this work in order to triumph over his truculent[305]
critics, the Della Cruscans, who had condemned the former version. In
the Imperial Library at Vienna is preserved the manuscript of this
version, with its numerous alterations and erasures, showing how
laborious the task of remodelling must have been. He suppressed the
touching incident of Olinda and Sophronia. He changed the name of
Rinaldo to Riccardo; and ruthlessly swept his pen through all the
flatteries, direct and indirect, which he had originally bestowed upon
the house of Este. There is hardly a single stanza that is not
changed. But in the process of revision he deprived his poem of all
life. Religious mysticism has been substituted for the refined
chivalry of the Crusades, and poetry and romance have been sacrificed
for classical regularity and religious orthodoxy. To any one familiar
with the original, the Conquistata must be regarded as the most
melancholy book in any language; a sad monument of a noble genius
robbed of its power and depressed by calamity. And it is all the more
melancholy that the author himself was utterly unconscious of its
defects, and got so enamoured of what he considered his improvements,
that he wrote and published a discourse called the Giudizio—a cold
pedantic work, in which he explained the principles upon which he made
his alterations. In vain, however, did the author thus commit literary
suicide. His immortal poem had passed beyond the reach of revision,
and stamped itself too deeply upon the minds and hearts of his
countrymen to be effaced by any after version. And now the
Conquistata has sunk into well-merited oblivion, while the
Liberata—"his youthful poetical sin," as he himself called it—is
everywhere admired as one of the great classics of the world.

For nine years Tasso lived after his imprisonment. But his free life
was only a little less burdensome than his prison one. With impaired
health and extinguished hope, and only the wreck of his great
intellect, he wandered a homeless pilgrim from court to court, drawn
like a moth to the brilliant flame that had wrought his[306] ruin. Well
would it have been for him had he settled down to some quiet
independent pursuit that would have taken him away from the atmosphere
of court life altogether, such as the Professorship of Poetry and
Ethics which had been offered to him by the Genoese Academy. But the
habits of a whole lifetime could not now be given up. His education
and training had fitted him for no other mode of life. Without the
patronage of the great, literature in those days had not a chance of
success; and a thousand incidents in the life of Tasso serve to show
that "genius was considered the property, not of the individual, but
of his patron"; and with petty meanness was the reward allotted for
this appropriation dealt out. His experience of the favour of princes
at this period was only a repetition of his own earlier one, and that
of his father. His patrons, one after another, got tired of him; and
yet he persisted in soliciting their favour. From the door of his
former friend, Cardinal Gonzaga, at Rome, he was turned away; and as a
fever-stricken mendicant he sought refuge in the Bergamese Hospital of
that city, founded by a relative of his own, who little thought that
it would one day afford an asylum to the most illustrious of his name.

But fate had now discharged its last evil arrow, and began to relent
during the two remaining years of his life. The sun that was all day
obscured, as it struggled with dark clouds, emerged at last, and made
the western sky ablaze with splendour. All over the country nothing
was to be heard but the echoes of Tasso's praises. From the fountains
of the Adige to the Straits of Messina, in the valleys of Savoy, and
in the capitals of Spain and France, his immortal epic was read or
recited by the highest and the lowest. Fortunes were made by its sale.
The famous bandit Sciarra, who with his troop of robbers had terrified
the whole of Southern Italy, hearing that Tasso was at Gaeta, on his
journey from Naples to Rome, sent to compliment him, and[307] offer him,
not only a free passage, but protection by the way. At Florence,
whither he went at the invitation of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the
whole literary society of the place, even including many of the Della
Cruscans, showered honours upon him. While at Rome Pope Clement VIII.
gave him the most flattering reception, assigned to him an apartment
in the Vatican, and an annual income of two hundred scudi. From the
representatives of his mother's friends at Naples he was also offered
an annuity of two hundred ducats, and a considerable sum in hand, on
condition of stopping the lawsuit. Thus furnished with what he had
vainly looked for all his life, the means of a comfortable
subsistence, his closing days promised a happiness to which he had
hitherto been a stranger. But the gifts of fortune were brought to him
with sad auguries, like the soft sunny smiles of September skies,
which gild the fading leaves with a mockery of May. Tasso came to Rome
in November. But the state of his health was so deplorable that he
could not remain with safety in the room assigned to him in the
Vatican. It was thought, therefore, that the elevated position and
salubrious air, as well as the quiet life of the monastery of St.
Onofrio, not far off on the same side of the Tiber, would be more
suitable for his restoration. Accordingly, Cardinal Cynthio
Aldobrandini, nephew of Clement VIII., who had befriended him on many
occasions, brought him to St. Onofrio in his own carriage. And as his
weary steps crossed the threshold, he said to the monks, who received
him with pitying looks, "I come to die among you."

Whenever he was able to go out, he spent the last days of his life in
the garden of the monastery. There he sat under the shadow of the aged
oak that has since become historical; and as he watched the sunset of
his life, he would gaze upon the mighty ruins and the glorious view
stretching before him with that inspired vision which creates half the
beauty it beholds, and with[308] that enhanced appreciation caused by the
prospect of the coming darkness which would hide it for ever from his
sight. We love to think of the poet in this quiet resting-place, where
the noises of the great world reached him only in subdued murmurs.
Heaven was above him, and the world beneath. The memory of his wrongs
and his ambitions alike vanished in the shadow cast before by his
approaching death. Alfonso and Ferrara faded away upon the horizon of
eternity; even the fame of his Gerusalemme, the great object for
which he had lived, had become utterly indifferent to him. In the
monastery of St. Onofrio, a bent, sorrow-stricken man, old before his
time, joining with the monks in the duties of religion, Tasso appeals
more powerfully to our feelings than when in the full flush of youth
and happiness he shone the brightest star in the royal court of
Alfonso.

Awakening to the sense of the great loss that Italy was about to
sustain in his death, his friends and admirers proposed that the Pope
should confer upon him at the Capitol the laurel wreath that had
crowned the brow of Petrarch. But the weather during the winter proved
singularly unpropitious for such a ceremony. Rain fell almost every
day, and constant sirocco winds depressed the spirits of the people
and prevented all outdoor enjoyments. And thus the season wore on till
April dawned with the promise of brighter skies, and the day was
fixed, and all the élite of Rome and of the chief cities of Italy
were invited to attend the coronation. Extensive preparations were
made; the whole city was in a flutter of excitement, and the people
looked forward to a holiday such as Rome had not seen since the days
of the Cæsars. But by this time the poet was dying, fever-wasted, in
his lonely cell. He could see from his window, as he lay propped up
with pillows on his narrow couch, across the river and its broad
valley crowded with houses, the slender campanile of Michael Angelo
ascending from the Capitoline Hill, marking the spot where at the
moment the people were busy preparing[309] for the magnificent ceremony of
the morrow. But not for him was the triumph; it came too late.
"Tomorrow," he said, "I shall be beyond the reach of all earthly
honour." He received the last rites of the Church from the hands of
the diocesan, and passed quietly away with the unfinished sentence
upon his lips, "Into thy hands, O Lord," while the concluding strains
of the vesper hymn were chanted by the monks. And they who came on the
morrow, to summon him to his coronation, found him in the sleep of
death. The laurel wreath that was meant for his brow was laid upon his
coffin, as it was carried on the very day of his intended coronation,
with great pomp, cardinals and princes bearing up the pall, and
deposited in the neighbouring church of the monastery. Ever since, the
anniversary of his death has been religiously kept by the monks of St.
Onofrio. They throw open on that day, the 25th of April, the monastery
and garden to the general public; ladies are freely admitted, and a
festival is observed, during which portions of the poet's writings are
read, his relics exhibited, and his tomb wreathed with flowers.

Tasso died, like Virgil his model, in his fifty-first year. Short and
chequered and full of trouble as was his life, it is amazing what an
immense amount of literary work he accomplished. Since the publication
of his Rinaldo, in his seventeenth year, he never ceased writing,
even in the most unfavourable circumstances. Of his prose and poetical
works no less than twenty-five volumes remain to us. These works are
all rich in biographical materials. They show an ideal tenderness of
feeling, an intense love for everything beautiful, and a deep piety,
not only of sentiment but of duty. They are specially interesting to
us as links connecting the ancient world with the modern. We can trace
the influence of Tasso's genius in very varied quarters. He not only
gave a new impulse to the literature of his own country, but even
inspired the artistic productions of[310] the day. The most beautiful
passages of Spenser's Faerie Queen were suggested by his pastoral
poetry; while his chivalrous epic was to Milton at once the incentive
and the model of his own immortal work. It is probable that the New
Heloïse of Rousseau, and the tragedy of Zaire by Voltaire, would
not have been written had not Tasso invested the subject of romantic
love and of the Crusades with such a deep interest to the authors. We
of this age may miss in Tasso's poetical works the dramatic force to
which we are accustomed in such productions; but we acknowledge the
spell which the lyrical element that pervades them all, and towards
which Tasso's genius was most strongly bent, casts over us. His own
personal history strikingly illustrates the vanity of a life spent in
dependence upon princes. But fortunately the lesson is no longer
needed; for a wide and intelligent constituency of readers all over
the world now afford the patronage to literature which was formerly
the special privilege of single individuals favoured by rank or
fortune. Both to authors and readers this emancipation has been
productive of the happiest results.